When Jacobs got the money earlier this month, he was so touched that he vowed to get together with Joe and his family when he was back in New Jersey. This week, he kept his promise.

Jacobs and his 5-year-old son Brayden met Armento, his mother and brother at a Boonton, N.J., bounce house, where they, well, bounced for over two hours.

“He told me he really wanted to get out there with the kids,” Julie Armento told Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee. “He really wanted to enjoy it, and he did. It was amazing.”

The letter from Joe was just the pick-me-up Jacobs told Armento he needed after his departure from New York. “I'm at a point in my career when people have stopped believing in me and not believing that I can still play,” Jacobs told Barrows. “But that's not the case. Joe believes in me, gave me a lot of confidence and a lot of want-to. And I'm ready to go. I can't wait until the season starts.”

It takes a brave kid to mix it up in a bounce house with Jacobs, who is rather large. “It was just us in the whole place and we were just going room to room — just bouncing and flipping all over the place, hitting each other with balls, sweating, our shirts filthy,” Jacobs said. (He tweeted a photo of the bouncy, stinky crew.) “We were just dirty, stinky boys, you know?”

We do. Joe took home an autographed Giants helmet and a $3.36 refund — with a little something extra.

“He had some interest in there just for being a good kid,” Jacobs said. “He's worth a lot more than that $5 bill I gave him.”